A majority of voters across the country say that the Democratic-led House should send the articles of impeachment to the Senate, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll.
The survey, published on Tuesday, showed that 58 percent of voters nationwide said House Democrats should move forward on the articles and send them to the upper chamber for an impeachment trial.
Another 42 percent said that Democrats should instead suspend the impeachment process.
Democrats were more inclined to say that Democratic leaders should send the impeachment articles to the Senate.
Sixty-two percent of Democratic voters said House leaders should move forward, compared to 53 percent of Republicans and 56 percent of independents.
The survey comes as Democrats and Republicans dig in over Trump’s impending Senate trial.
The House passed two articles of impeachment against Trump last month — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
But the Senate is still waiting for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to send over the articles of impeachment. Pelosi has sought to withhold the articles until she has more details on the terms of Senate proceedings and how the trial would be structured.
The move is also part of Democrats’ effort to pressure Senate Republicans to concede to their demands to have additional witnesses testify in the president’s impeachment trial.
Democrats faced a blow on those demands when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Tuesday that he has enough votes to approve rules to start Trump’s trial without requiring witness testimony.
McConnell needs just 51 votes from senators to approve the resolution setting the ground rules, which would shoot down any attempts by Democrats to include witnesses. Already, the leader has made known he has two key swing votes — Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
Both Republican lawmakers on Monday backed McConnell’s position that the upper chamber should follow the precedent of the 1999 Clinton impeachment trial and defer later in the process on the question of calling additional witnesses.
The Hill-HarrisX poll was conducted among 1,001 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent points. Sampling error among partisan voters is higher.
—Tess Bonn
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